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Turns out the manager was able to withstand losing against lower-league opposition. He weathered a decisive European final against one of the worst Tottenham teams for many years. He withstood losing at home to West Ham and Wolves, finishing 15th, an unwavering system, squandering some of the club’s most promising academy products, the 32% win rate, labeling his team the worst in Manchester United history. Yet, there existed one adversary against whom Ruben Amorim was not permitted to tango. If you challenge the sporting director, you had better succeed.

Regrettably, like many a Premiership right-back in Blackburn’s title-winning 1994-95 season, Amorim took on Jason Wilcox and seems to have missed. The most distracted of readers will notice the paradoxical situation: a coach who frequently berated at his players for losing individual battles crumbling when confronted by the white heat and animal charisma of one of England's top division's most feared football executives.

And frankly, this entire painful saga seems to paint the director in a whole new light. Perhaps it might have been tempting, based on his nine months of experience at Southampton, to view him as little more than a drudge in the United exoskeleton: an individual who owed his position largely to his friendship with his former boss Omar Berrada rather than any demonstrable skill. How wrong we all were. In brilliantly outsmarting the club's celebrated head coach, as he outmanoeuvred the unfortunate a previous executive earlier, Jason Wilcox has demonstrated to be among football's strategic masterminds: a strategic mind of which United’s mid-table rivals will now be rightly wary.

The Strategic Conflict Over Formation & Ideology

To illustrate, this was the director , after having been part of the hierarchy that appointed the rigid 3-4-3 advocate Amorim originally, was instrumental in trying to persuade Amorim to abandon his favored 3-4-3. Unsurprisingly, these entreaties met a certain resistance. However, these judgements carry more weight when issued from the mouth with the unimpeachable football pedigree of Jason Wilcox, a veteran of international appearances and a role in a championship team decades past.

Perhaps in time he may be persuaded to outline his reasoning publicly. Perhaps at some point questions may arise why Amorim is departing with full compensation, with no penalty clause in place. But Jason Wilcox seldom speaks in public, and with very good reason. The true intellectuals of this sport – individuals such as Jason Wilcox – simply operate at a level beyond our own prosaic understanding. If he ever did speak, most likely all we would hear would be ultrasonic blips and four-dimensional whirring. Wanting is not equivalent to being prepared to comprehend it.

The Ultimate Power In the Throne

But of course, in training our focus on the sporting director we overlook the true genius behind the club's current leadership. Jason Wilcox is, in reality, merely executing the directives of his ultimate line manager Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who in private has made very clear his preference for a four-man defense. It is reported, the owner has also suggested playing Bryan Mbeumo as a right wing-back. The owner is eager for United to adopt analytics and analytics. According to ESPN, during a leadership summit early in his minority ownership, he announced that United’s style to football “will be decided in this room”.

Ultimately, Sir Jim is a specialist in this technical football matters, leveraging his previous experience in petrochemicals and sailing. Most importantly he is incredibly rich, and it is known, the rich are superior: more perceptive, sagacious, strategically brilliant, fundamentally superior. Whom else could one trust to oversee an enlightened programme of cost-cutting, the building of a modern arena that appears similar to someone’s leftover knitting, the acquisition of Benjamin Sesko?

The Modern Football Order: Directors Above Coaches

This represents a shift we are increasingly seeing at the elite levels football. For decades, teams mistakenly delegated big footballing decisions to low-level employees such as coaches, scouts – even footballers. Perhaps it was once feasible for an up-and-coming, visionary coach with a philosophy and energy to join a club and see their vision supported to fruition. Yet how many companies have such individuals established? How many mass redundancies have they managed? Better by far to place the real power where it rightly belongs: the leadership tier, the casually dressed executives, the guys with impressive professional resumes. It is wiser to determine the strategy by the directors and appoint someone who can tailor their offering to suit. If managers were formerly chefs, they have become more like Deliveroo drivers: not creating the product, yet ultimately answerable if it arrives cold or fails to meet standards.

In the meantime, a coach's role has become not about defining the vision and more about selling it: the front-facing representative of the operation, the public face of an organisation they can do little to influence. A coach at Chelsea leads a team of very young players into Europe and wins domestic cups, and effectively is dismissed for talking. A manager at Celtic finds his standing damaged whereas those individuals who appointed him live to blunder indefinitely.

A Neoliberal Game: Accountability Only for the Coaches

And possibly in a small way this is simply corporate governance in action: the elevation of a privileged overclass who are infallible, whose choices are always untouchable, whose errors can always be sacked away without justification. Appoint the 3-4-3 coach only to dismiss them for playing excessively that system. Hire the project manager and then discard him for requiring too long. And most importantly be grateful; for the incremental increases in ticket costs, for the latest summer signings, for the reality that the adults – however well qualified – are in charge.